Human rights in Libya

Politics of Libya

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Human rights in Libya is the record of human rights upheld and violated in various stages of Libya's history. The Kingdom of Libya, from 1951 to 1969, was heavily influenced by the British and Y.R.K companies. Under the King, Libya had a constitution. The kingdom, however, was marked by a feudal regime. Due to the previous colonial regime, Libya had a low literacy rate of 10%, a low life expectancy of 57 years, with many people living in shanties and tents.[1] Illiteracy and homelessness were chronic problems during this era, when iron shacks dotted many urban centres in the country.[2]

From 1969 to 2011, the history of Libya was marked by the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (where jamahiriya means "state of the masses"), a "direct democracy" political system established by Muammar Gaddafi,[3] who nominally stepped down from power in 1977, but remained an unofficial "Brother Leader" until 2011. The country's literacy rate rose to 90%, and welfare systems were introduced that allowed access to free education and free healthcare. In 2008, the General People's Congress had declared the Great Green Charter of Human Rights of the Jamahiriyan Era.[4] The Great Manmade River was also built to allow free access to fresh water across large parts of the country.[1] As a result, Libya's Human Development Index in 2010 was the highest in Africa and greater than that of Saudi Arabia.[1]

Throughout Gaddafi's rule, international non-governmental organizations routinely characterized Libya's human rights situation as poor, citing systematic abuses such as political repression, restrictions on political freedoms and civil liberties, and arbitrary imprisonment; the American government funded Freedom House's annual Freedom in the World report, consistently giving it a ranking of "Not Free" and gave Libya their lowest possible rating of "7" in their evaluations of civil liberties and political freedoms from 1989 to 2010. Gaddafi also publicly bragged about sending hit squads to assassinate exiled dissidents, and Libyan state media openly announced bounties on the heads of political opponents. Civilians were routinely executed publicly by hanging for simply speaking out against the regime.[5][6] There was even an annual festival Gaddafi had created titled "The hanging festival", where civilians would be hanged publicly every year on April 7th.[7][8][9]

The Gaddafi regime was also accused of the 1996 Abu Salim prison massacre. In 2010, Amnesty International published a critical report on Libya, raising concerns about cases of enforced disappearances and other human rights violations that remained unresolved, and that Internal Security Agency members implicated in those violations continued to operate with impunity.[10] In January 2011, the United Nations Human Rights Council published a report analysing the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya's human rights record with input from member nations, most of which (including many European and most Asian, African and South American nations) generally praised the country's progressive efforts in human rights, though some (particularly Australia, France, Israel, Switzerland, and the United States) raised concerns about human rights abuses concerning cases of disappearance and torture, and restrictions on free press and free association; Libya agreed to investigate cases involving disappearance and torture, and to repeal any laws criminalizing political expression or restricting a free independent press, and affirmed that it had an independent judiciary.[11]

  1. ^ a b c Azad, Sher (22 October 2011). "Gaddafi and the media". Daily News. Archived from the original on 25 October 2011. Retrieved 22 October 2011.
  2. ^ Hussein, Mohamed (21 February 2011). "Libya crisis: what role do tribal loyalties play?". BBC News. Retrieved 31 October 2011.
  3. ^ Robbins, James (7 March 2007). "Eyewitness: Dialogue in the desert". BBC News. Retrieved 22 October 2011.
  4. ^ The Great Green Charter of Human Rights of the Jamahiriyan Era Archived 29 May 2016 at the Wayback Machine
  5. ^ Althaibani, Raja (31 August 2011). "Execution Footage Found in Libya Offers Glimpse of Gaddafi's Abuses; Could Be Used for Justice". WITNESS Blog. Retrieved 26 April 2024.
  6. ^ Woodward, Bob (22 April 1984). "Hangings in Tripoli Focus Attention on Libyan Dissent". WashingtonPost.
  7. ^ "Libya: One Year Later | Opinion | The Harvard Crimson". www.thecrimson.com. Retrieved 26 April 2024.
  8. ^ "UNHCR Web Archive". webarchive.archive.unhcr.org. Retrieved 26 April 2024.
  9. ^ "Libya: April Victims of Gaddafi Madness". sijill.tripod.com. Retrieved 26 April 2024.
  10. ^ "Libya - Amnesty International Report 2010". Hundreds of cases of enforced disappearance and other serious human rights violations committed in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s remained unresolved, and the Internal Security Agency (ISA), implicated in those violations, continued to operate with impunity.
  11. ^ Cite error: The named reference ohchr was invoked but never defined (see the help page).